Monday, 6 December 2010

Phew!

After seeing the state of Mal's brassica netting at his post here, I was anxious to see how ours had fared. Perhaps we have a different type of snow over here at the other side of the city, but the cage was standing up for itself. The broccoli is pretty much buried, but it wasn't any great height to start with. Another note to self - plant it out earlier next season so that it can grow on faster before autumn sets in.

10 comments:

Hard to believe the sunsets so early huh. We're the same in Northern Ireland. Enjoyed your last post seeing the leaves on top of the snow. We had really strong wind a couple of weeks before all this snow so our leaves where down already.

Dear Linda, I suggest that you get the top netting off your fruit cage sharpish! I left mine on last winter and it was a very expensive mistake. The huge build up of freezing snow crushed the metalwork, it bent and buckled as though it had been jumped on. We have such a heavy frost here in the West Country that I can't get a fork in the ground to dig up any veg!

I'm happy for you, Linda - really. But your photo confirms that being that bit nearer the sea has been beneficial. A neighbour, fed up with pigeons munching his brassicas through droopings nets recently made a series of rectangular frames with chickenwire stretched across them. Each corner was reinforced with strut (triangular fashion). The wood was painted with preservative. Then he boxed in his brassicas with them section by section, to keep the pigeons off. - The snow snapped them like matchwood! For my part, it was clear on my visit last weekend that I wouldn't be able to retrieve my net from under the ice and snow, so I cunningly laid a second net over the supports as a temporary measure until the thaw set in. The next day we got 6 inches more and although I haven't been along I know I now have two buried holey nets. Brrr! Grrr!